Do you see your moral obligations or that need to be "perfect" as your feelings or do the two clash?

I tend to see those as outside of the feeling realm, because I associate feeling with emotional reactions, and I tend to approach my moral obligations in a pretty straightforward way, unless those obligations are challenged or impeded, or unless someone questions my process -- and then by virtue of explaining it, it sounds emotional. Like trying to explain Fi, there's no way to do it without it sounding flimsy and, yes, illogical -- which I guess makes it feeling-based. So I guess, to answer your question (again, lol), even though it's totally feeling, I tend to make myself see it differently, to legitimize it, because it's so easy for me to de-legitimize feelings.

What about other feelings/emotions which may be inappropriate, such as lasciviousness (or whatever)?

Same thing, really -- which is sad. With lasciviousness (great word!), for example, I am dangerously good at repressing my feelings about guys if I don't consider them to be in my league. It's a problem.

Oh yeah, and sadness for an e4 is a sort of exploration of human feeling which can lead to a greater awareness of self & people in general & what they need/how they work. It's like diving deep in murky water in hopes of finding a pearl. Beauty can come out of it, especially when the e4 is creatively inspired. Or you can drown...

Like SD45T-2, I tend to drown, almost exclusively. It's probably that we as Ones have a very limited ability to access the positive characteristics of 4s. (Or it's just me and him; my mom's a 1w2 and she loves savoring sadness, e.g. in movies, or when playing the INFJ martyr after a bad day.)

Originally Posted by Usehername

Verbally. And directly. I'm not very subtle at all. I'm the kind of person that says, "I like you. I like x about you."

That's awesome. Reminds me so much of my INTJ roommate from last year. She's a 1w9, and whenever she complimented people, she would do so in exactly the manner you described: deadpan and straightforward as hell. I have no idea whether her motivation for that was as benevolent and well-formed as yours, or whether there was a philosophy behind it -- but she definitely gave excellent compliments.

Like SD45T-2, I tend to drown, almost exclusively. It's probably that we as Ones have a very limited ability to access the positive characteristics of 4s. (Or it's just me and him; my mom's a 1w2 and she loves savoring sadness, e.g. in movies, or when playing the INFJ martyr after a bad day.)

As I mentioned earlier, part of the problem is that I have very little artistic talent, so I don't really have a creative outlet.

1w2-6w5-3w2 so/sp

"I took one those personality tests. It came back negative." - Dan Mintz

I'm not sure I do. I'm still trying to consciously allow myself to deal with it (feel it) instead of rationalizing it away or finding it too trivial for me to entertain.

What is the experience/process of repressing them like (or whatever you do with them)?

It's different depending on what I'm repressing. One thing is common though, when there's a leak, there will be a flood.

When & how do you ever act on them?
When I find it beneficial to an objective. Meaning, if the ends justifies the means....

What convinces you that your own feelings, emotions and/or desires are valid or not problematic?

What do you mean?
How does one get you to talk more openly of yourself?

No one gets me to talk more openly about myself. I decide when its time and I don't think I have a guideline for that.

You seem to like to hide your personal side; is that a correct perception?

Other people's perception is that I am hiding. To me, I'm wide open.

What makes someone appealing/attractive to you, both romantically & platonically?

People with passion and determination. "Against all odds," type of spirit.

How does your wing influence your personality?

I believe it makes me a bit withdrawn and most conflicts too petty to play with. Sometimes I feel too apathetic of people's troubles.

And your instinctual stack?

I'm quite observant of my environment. I can quickly assess a group and my position in it. I know its flaws and strengths and have the ability to rearrange them to maximize their potential. I analyze my influence in it and be able to see how much of myself is needed.

What do you hate to be like?

I don't think it's possible for me to ever be like something I hate.
How do you like to be?

A more self-aware individual.

How do you like to be perceived?

People can perceive me any way they want, it doesn't matter to me.
What's an impression others often have of you that is not accurate and/or is surprising to you in a negative way?

Arrogant and insensitive.

What's an impression others often have of you that is surprising in a positive way?

"You're actually quite nice." It's surprising because of what people typically perceive of me before they even have a conversation with me pass "hello, how was your day." lol

I wrote this giant reply... and then it was maintenance time, and it deleted the entire thing. So! Another try, but briefer this time -- and feel free to ask follow-up questions if my answers are too general/vague to make sense.

When a post fails at maintenance time, don't do anything with that browser window for a half hour. Then press refresh. If it still doesn't go, wait another minute or two. Because your message is not lost, it's just cached. But if you wait too long (like 12 hours or so), it will vanish into cyberspace.

"Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth." Mike Tyson
“Culture?” says Paul McCartney. “This isn't culture. It's just a good laugh.”

How do you deal with your feelings, emotions & desires? For some reason, that's hard to answer. I guess most things take some time to boil around till they seem more clear to me. Once I'm at that stage, verbalizing them to someone else helps me to sort out what's important from what is not and how much weight to give to each thing. Mostly I am focussed on whether or not verbalizing will achieve the ultimate outcome that matters to me. If I don't think it will, I probably won't bother.

What is the experience/process of repressing them like (or whatever you do with them)?I don't think I repress a lot of things. I just don't always act on them. When I am angry, it takes me awhile to decide what it is that is bothering me, is it part of a larger pattern with the other person, are there factors on my part (tired, emotionally drained etc) and so on. Usually I don't speak right when I should because it's only something small that triggers that kind of anger, but then I realize that it's attached to a whole other network of other things. It's hard to decide when I can just deal with something (I want to seem reasonable, not overly emotional and not nitpicky) and when that thing is going to tip the balances to a place where the thing needs dealing with, but by then there is a lot of emotion in my voice or body language. If there's no way to deal with it directly with the person, I need some kind of outlet to talk aboiut it or it's like a kettle full of steam with the hole covered up. I find it intensely embarrassing to have the emotional dam break in front of people, rather than letting it out in a controlled way or in an appropiate place at an appropriate time. Sometimes I'm unaware of how much something is bothering me until it's too late to control though.

When & how do you ever act on them?
What convinces you that your own feelings, emotions and/or desires are valid or not problematic?Sometimes I need to just let things simmer for a bit until they fall into place and the action I should take is clearl. Sometimes talking about it with someone I trust helps me decide whether I am going overboard, or whether my perceptions were accurate. I think as I've gotten older I've learned that if you are going to be non-bland, some people will like you more and some will like you less. You can't be everything to everyone (which I used to want to be). I've also seen there is some value in conflict as long as it is pursued in the right way. I'm trying to become more proactive instead of just avoiding the situation and dealing with it internally (sometimes the dam bursts when the pressure is too much and that never works out well). Only people I am really not invested in or people I am extremely close to usually will hear the negative stuff about them. I find conflict with those in the middle more difficult.

How does one get you to talk more openly of yourself? Show and interest and ask questions. If someone doesn't, I will assume they don't want to know, especially if I've thrown something out there and they don't follow up on it. Be careful not to laugh at or be too challenging initially of something that I volunteer or that matters to me. Look for common ground first before branching out to areas of discord.

You seem to like to hide your personal side; is that a correct perception?I don't think so - to me I seem pretty open. Others might perceive me that way though, as I will only open up if someone genuinely wants to know.

What makes someone appealing/attractive to you, both romantically & platonically?I like curiosity, someone who can discuss ideas, someone who is always looking to improve and grow, and usually someone who initiates more than I naturally do. Someone who has integrity and is not waiting for someone to make their life begin.

How does your wing influence your personality?From what I can tell, I'm a 1w2. Probably the 2 softens up the crusaderness of the 1. I get a lot of pleasure from being able to help people around me in a way that's useful to them.

And your instinctual stack?I'm so/sx. I think it makes human systems and people very interesting to me. I need time to recharge but get kind of wilty without meaningful human contact on a very regular basis. I have a compulsion to figure out what makes people tick. I think I'm pretty good at reading what's going on in a group quickly and what everyone's roles are. I think I'm also good at taking a more or less prominent role in a group as needed. The STJs in my life are aware of physical details around them that I would never notice. I believe I do the same, but in an social/emotional sense.

What do you hate to be like?I'm not quite sure what you mean. I don't want to be hypocritical or asking anything of someone that I wouldn't do myself. Not really sure what else - would need a more specific question.

How do you like to be?In what sense?

How do you like to be perceived?Someone who is trustworthy and keeps their word. Competant. Useful. Interesting.

What's an impression others often have of you that is not accurate and/or is surprising to you in a negative way?Many people who don't know me well often assume I'm blandly "nice" or that I'm shy. I don't like this because it isn't accurate. How I act usually depends on my comfort level. I like to know what to expect first before I interact and sometimes that takes a little while.

I think that some people also assume that because I am Christian I might be naive or easily shocked. It's funny to me, but I think it's also a little patronizing because it is built on an incorrect stereotype.

I don't know if this is negative really, but I also find that people have wildly differing opinions of what I am like and often assume that I hold the same belief system as them. I think this mostly comes from not making judgements right away (even if I do have opinions) and asking a lot of questions to gather context to understand their point of view. It kind of makes me laugh to have one group of people perceive me as an anarchist, another as a hippy and another as a sweet goody two shoes. None are really accurate.

What's an impression others often have of you that is surprising in a positive way?I don't know - often people aren't as likely to share positive impressions. Most anything that has come up isn't too surprising to me. It is interesting to know if the person I think I am putting out there is the same person as other people perceive they are meeting.

I'm so/sx. I think it makes human systems and people very interesting to me. I need time to recharge but get kind of wilty without meaningful human contact on a very regular basis. I have a compulsion to figure out what makes people tick. I think I'm pretty good at reading what's going on in a group quickly and what everyone's roles are. I think I'm also good at taking a more or less prominent role in a group as needed.

Could so/sx be generalized as people watchers? I seem to be attracted to group dynamics and such and often find myself studying a particular environment before I join it. For some time, I thought I was a Fe-user because of this and soon realized that I was only defining the function narrowly. Now I'm under the assumption that it has to do something with my instincts.

I don't have a big enough control group, but from what I've seen here, I'd say yes, definitely!

I was surprised when I first came here to discover that not all INFJs liked as much people contact as I did. It appears that it is largely due to many of them being sp first. Several people suggested I seemed too extraverted to be INFJ and that maybe I was ENFJ. However, after getting more familiar with several ENFJs, I have to say that the difference is so first, as I do not really match the ENFJ profile.

I don't have a big enough control group, but from what I've seen here, I'd say yes, definitely!

I was surprised when I first came here to discover that not all INFJs liked as much people contact as I did. It appears that it is largely due to many of them being sp first. Several people suggested I seemed too extraverted to be INFJ and that maybe I was ENFJ. However, after getting more familiar with several ENFJs, I have to say that the difference is so first, as I do not really match the ENFJ profile.

I don't know... I'm pretty sure I'm sp-first (that's usually how I test) but I need a fair amount of people contact and like you, it seems to be considerably more than with a lot of other INFJs. Sometimes I think that's just what I'm conditioned to, but I do seem to need it. Although...what I REALLY need is to know that people are out there thinking about me and caring about me - I'm not so concerned about having them physically around as much of the time.

I feel like for me the sp-first manifests more in terms of feeling "emotionally unsafe" with a lot of people and in a lot of situations, and worrying about physical safety a fair amount, too. But this surely manifests itself different with a 6 and with a 1. I've also heard that 6s tend to be more "ambivert" and that actually fits me quite well. I have a hard time convincing many people that I'm an introvert, but I'm convinced that I am, in terms of where I recoup my energy, etc. But I'm certainly not extremely introverted.

Sorry, I guess I just barged into a 1 thread. but the thing about sp-first interested me. I'm not sure about instinctual variant but a lot of the heavily introverted INFJs seems to be 4s or 5s. (though I think a lot of 4 and 5 INFJs mistype themselves, but that's one of my personal things that I've got a bee in my bonnet over.)

^ Thanks for the contributions, SilkRoad! You didn't barge into the thread.

FWIW, the most introverted INFJ I know is either a 1w9 or a 9w1. She's very silent and dutiful; a perfect day for her would be spent alone at a library, reading books in Greek and Latin. (Those crazy Classics majors!)

Update: I just figured out that yes, I was right the first time when I thought I was so/sp. They're still close, but social wins out. So let me re-answer the question of how my instinctual stack influences me:

I think being so/sp strengthens my 2 wing, a bit. It makes me pretty gossipy. I'm always curious about people's lives, interpersonal dynamics, etc. But at the same time, it makes me retreat into myself whenever I'm not comfortable, or whenever a situation is unhealthy, unsafe, etc-- unless, of course, the Greater Good requires that I not think of myself, or if I care so much about someone that I have to think of them instead, etc.

Because I have these traits and because I'm a 1w2, I have always had a strong, personal, pseudo-journalistic curiosity about people, cultures, and humanity in general, not just because I find them fascinating, but because they are quite simply the focus of my world. It explains my academic interests (psychology, history, sociology); I see their problems and I want to study them, and even though -- since they're ingrained, for the most part -- most of them are unfixable, I want to fix things in the area that is the most annoyingly broken and within my fixing abilities. It also explains why I'm so prone towards treating people like academic interests; I analyze them constantly, to try to figure them out, and even though that makes me grow closer to them, it also maintains my distance. (See: lack of Sx.)